Earthquake Lake Threatens China’s Longest Oil Link

China’s longest fuel pipeline is at risk of damage from an earthquake lake that’s threatening to burst its banks, said the parent of operator PetroChina Co.

The Lanzhou-Chengdu-Chongqing pipeline is 60 kilometers (37 miles) downstream from Tangjiashan lake, formed after the May 12 temblor that struck China’s southwestern province of Sichuan, China National Petroleum Corp. said in a statement on its Web site today. PetroChina’s Chairman Jiang Jiemin is at the site.
The 1,252-kilometer pipeline carries 70 percent of Sichuan’s oil-product supplies, linking the provincial capital of Chengdu and Chongqing city to PetroChina’s Lanzhou refinery in Gansu province. Premier Wen Jiabao said work on the lake is at a “critical point” as officials warned it may overflow and inundate townships downstream, Xinhua News Agency said today.

Any potential shutdown of the pipeline that lasted three days would cause oil-product shortages in the quake-affected areas and “seriously” affect fuel supplies to the southern provinces of Yunnan and Guizhou, China National said. The pipeline can transport more than 6 million metric tons of fuel a year, or about 44 million barrels, it said.

Bloomberg